I just had to throw my weight around when our flight companions finally arrived for the transfer. An early-balder from the UK and his bambi-eyed1 bride. They had done nothing wrong and are, i assume, good people2. 😂 Exhausted and more than a little drunk now, Disdain was enjoying her party.
I have a rule – or superstition – about getting into helicopters recreationally. It just seems like an effective way to kill people off through privilege. The plane we are eventually ushered to looks smaller than the copters beside it. I always said this was a good way for rich people to die, and i am cool with not being that rich.
We are four adventurous flyers now, but i am incapable of mustering any camaraderie. Suncripsed and afable, the faint cheeriness of our companions was easily oppressed by my mood. With British-born manners and likely warranted fear of Disdain, Mr. and Mrs. Rich politely defer to me to climb in first.
When i don’t speak it’s difficult for people to profile me as American, which is mostly all we do in these parts. That is, until i open my mouth, which can be jarring for unsuspecting profilers. I visibly recoil from the offer to board first. “Put the kids in the back,” i command without eye contact, skills honed through my Covid-in-Arabia identity. Early-balder lent his hand to the freshly-minted Mrs. Charlotte Rich. I didn’t catch his first name from the manifest.
Loaded-on, strapped-in, headsets in-place, we synchronously tense as the engine strains to get up the force for take-off. The plane is more Hyundai than Porsche – not so much the elegant send-off i had designed. The pilot, probably Sri Lankan, smiled wordlessly. He looked nearly 15 years old. We were off.
Words that identify loss as an identity in perpetuity.
You can never unbecome these identities for as long as life goes on; for as long as anyone lives who remembers your life.
What happens after that? Who are you in your palace of tears and memories you built with all of your effort forever but are now too sweet and painful to call on and you just seek to forget?
Words that identify loss as an identity in perpetuity.
You can never unbecome these identities for as long as life goes on; for as long as anyone lives who remembers your life.
What happens after that? Who are you in your palace of tears and memories you built with all of your effort forever but are now too sweet and painful to call on and you just seek to forget?
I am often struggling with the semantics of these identities. When I get a table at Nobu Doha, I’m an expat. When i have my mandatory medical exam to get my residency card at the prison-like fortress in the desert, I am most certainly experiencing a small slice of the immigrant experience, or even less dignified, the experience of the foreign worker.
Me, seeking permission to exist and work in a country that is not my homeland, completely at the mercy of ceaselessly-subordinated officials who have their own bones to pick – for neither is it their homeland. They too, are temporary, imported workforce with little to no authority over their own lives. If we grow old, get sick, or lose our jobs or local sponsors, we become ineligible to exist here. In my day-to-day expat life, i would be entitled to boss them around, but not on this day.
In the case of Qatar, these freaky-friday-level, power flips involve a clash of class, race, history, economic improvement opportunities, cultural norms, religious beliefs and practices, and language barriers – just to name a few.
The medical exam wardens are mainly women, in keeping with Islamic gender segregation principles, and burdened by a long-practiced requirement to appear stern, even cruel, in their ministrations to us, other prospective foreign workers, gathered in silent, senseless, snaking, paper-gown queues, stepping up only the two permitted steps at a time but never waiting until there are four steps… all to meet their punitive instructions. Non-compliance is met with brutal and immediate rebuke. Sometimes we, the applicants, just don’t understand the instructions, and maybe in my case, a blatantly rule-adverse white girl from New Jersey, perhaps i just don’t wish to comply with group abuse that feels undignified and absurd. A wish is a privilege i am fortunate enough to enjoy, most days. I won’t go too deeply into what happened next, but the example is meant to hint at a precarious identity when one is a guest worker or a slave in a foreign land.
As an often-ignorant American who had never experienced living in this part of the world, i lacked comprehension or anticipation of my expendability and identity in a place or a group where i would never have an opportunity to become a member. The US is a nation where foreigners theoretically can immigrate, can become American – as futile, impossible and even fatal as these attempts may sometimes be, immigrants are possible.
“Others” can theoretically join our club, become one of US. Where i live now, i could never, not with struggle, education, funding, desire, marriage, – whatever – i could never become Qatari, could never join that club. Loopholes are rare and fleeting and perhaps as inauthentic as an oasis mirage.
Although an experienced expat in other countries previously, before this experience, i could never have comprehended these realities. Even now it’s hard for me to grok. Preservation of ancestral and cultural heritage is a pursuit sometimes noble, sometimes not. We throw genetic lineage into the mix as well. The balance of ancestral pride and welcoming and learning about the ‘other’ is what i had the blessing of knowing most of my life. How little i knew about how extremely rare this time, this place, this mindset was in history.
PassingThe Expatfrightened and powerless is how it must feel for many foreign workers and immigrants
It's inevitable - a dreaded relief will come over us
I imagine a future world – probably soon – where we debate getting the chip installed. We will no longer need a password for anything or have to remember how to log in through vpns, authenticators or various apps. “I’m going for it,” one friend in her 70’s told me. “I’m never giving them that control,” another commits.
The ones who give into the chip installment process early have a huge advantage. They save all kinds of time and energy and never suffer a pause in their day to log in or provide an OTP.
The long-term effects and wether the chip could cause us to pop-off in future is still to be seen. Rumored reports of the elderly performing extreme and unexpected data hacks in the Hong Kong markets have given some concern.
The main frame is reputed to be space-bot piloted, spinning by on an untraceable orbiting satellite. Apparently the conglomerate is privately owned and the the authority having regulatory jurisdiction undetermined, and held up in various international courts. But what a relief to declutter the mind and sweep on toward the future.
It’s inevitable – a dreaded relief will come over us
In the waiting area for the tiny plane to the private island, i’m slugging from the Grey Goose bottle i just panic-bought in the overpriced duty-free shop, upon landing. All around me, people are joyful; i remain remotely rigid. Smiling into the neck of the bottle, i thought of the beaming, young Qatari women who wished me a great stay. One of the pair had been here before. She motioned to her partner – “It’s her first time. You’re really in for a treat.” Once the big plane had landed, they shed their abayas, their aloof demeanors, and the burden of hiding their love. Habibti.
Our plane was late. Or in need of repair. “That was supposed to be your plane.” The manager showed me the mechanic working in the little hanger. “We are waiting for two more passengers. If they make it, we’ll be over our weight limit, so each couple will leave one bag behind.” Huh. Why had we packed so sparingly – so very irritatingly mathematically, weighing and re-weighing our small duffels, only to be displaced by some tardy honeymooners? I went back into the lounge and took another pull of the vodka, not really bothering to hide it anymore.
Years spent in the oft-touted-wealthiest-country-in-the-world can make a girl brazenly entitled. It had been four years of seemingly-limitless abuse and struggle in a furnace of nation and now our first break since surviving an impossible project. Entitlement and her sister, Disdain, almost always roll downhill. As a middleman, i had reliably superior aim, and, for my husbands happiness, i am a lioness. My dad had just died. I hadn’t saved him nor given him all the experiences he had still had a taste for — and i’d be damned if anything was going to get in the way of giving the man i had left everything he deserved.
My finely-tuned InshAllah seemed enfeebled by a fleeting and baseless sense of influence over the course of life’s events. When one’s relation to life loses the slipperiness of accepting everything, the resulting friction can be nearly lethal. With this hot antagonism, i greeted the holiday.
We are very sad to announce the passing of Albert R. Rago, Esquire, on May 11, 2023 at the age of 80, at his home in Maple Shade, NJ. He was a monumental person whose departure leaves an unfillable absence in our hearts. Al is survived by his loving wife, Janice, his daughters, Caroline (Rago) Campbell and Kate (Rago) Schwartz, stepson Peter Papaleo, sister and brother-in-law Sandra and Nicholas Finio, grandchildren Olivia and Alexander Schwartz, sons-in-law James Campbell and Jeffrey Schwartz, nephew Christopher Finio and niece Alexandra Handza.
Oxford’s dictionary defines a Renaissance Man as “a person who has wide interests and is expert in several areas.” Alternatively, you could just list a picture of Al.
Devoted husband, father, son, brother, and best friend, in good times and bad, Al was your confidante. He was the first call for many when we wanted to share something about our lives, get advice, a recipe, or simply discuss the day. Metaphysical musings or just what to serve for dinner, Al kept tabs on all the moments of our lives, and simultaneously a macro perspective on world events. He was always the most well-informed, yet somehow the most humble person in the room.
While his accomplishments and interests are too vast to name, Family was above everything to him. He was proud of his ancestors and relatives and so involved in all of our lives. This was evidenced in how he cared for us on the daily and in his choice to leave us on his beloved parents’ wedding anniversary. During one of his debilitating rounds of cancer treatment, Al penned his “Bristol Tales,” an intimate portrait of an Italian childhood in a small immigrant town. His legal briefs and his personal writings were concise, witty, and always poignant.
As an undergraduate at Dickinson College, Al partied famously with his friends and fraternity brothers, many of whom remain close with him today. He fell in love with jazz music and saw many of the greats perform live. A successful young attorney who was published in the Law Review, Al expressed his independent thinking and ethics, pioneering his own firm, sporting a beard in court in the 1970’s, and serving many clients pro bono, always helping those in need with kindness and sage advice. He carried on his father’s legacy to help those around him and championed personal and charitable causes with great impact. He was inducted into the US Supreme Court. Al had a warrior’s heart and fought with determination until the end.
Al loved all animals, the outdoors, and wildlife, a passion gained through childhood summers with his own Papi in the Pocono Mountains. He passed this passion and respect for the natural world on to his grandchildren. Al learned about horses as an adult, breeding and training showjumping champions while managing the family barn as well as a racing syndicate. He treasured his small fishing boat and his time on the open water. At their condo in Ventnor, he would kiss Janice goodbye and head out before dawn with his rods, excited to see what the catch of the day would be. He took his friends and grandkids out to watch the birds, catch fish, or trap crabs, narrating along with the hum of the motor or the silence of the breeze.
If you wanted to know how to peel an onion without crying, the rules and workings of the US congress, impeccably groom a horse, trim the sails on a yacht, read tides, tie a fly, navigate traffic, sharpen your knives, bonsai a tree, plant a garden, discuss literature, or bait a hook, Al was there to show you. He had perfect pitch, did not suffer fools, and would call things in stark reality. Al could be a fiery advocate or a pragmatic peacemaker. He brought fight and passion to all his critiques, whether to a legal case or his own mortality.
Al’s zest for life was beyond compare, and the world will feel empty without this Renaissance man. We are beyond grateful for all he has left us, and for the beautiful way he has taught us how to love.
Please join us in sharing a message, a memory, or photo of Al. Thank you for your love and support. ❤️
In lieu of flowers, donations in Al’s memory may be made to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital (www.stjude.org) and/or the American Civil Liberties Union ACLU (www.aclu.org).
When i found myself in Paris recently for some meetings, i could not resist being only 8 hours from my New Jersey family. I surprised my mom with French chocolates on my way back to Doha on Valentine’s Day. A great sentence to be fortunate enough to write.
She was happy. Then quickly her face became thoughtful. She pondered, “I didn’t know you were coming so i didn’t have time to compile the list of the things I want you to do for me.” I told her not to worry, that I would be around for a few days so she had time to consider and get back to me.
That night she messaged to me and my sister, once she had thought of how she could best spend her task credit with a daughter who was only available for a few days. Her message popped in “Can you pierce my left ear which closed up during Covid?”
There are a lot of reasons why this is a comical request; most of these i don’t have to explain. But there are a couple i should explain, Firstly, I always wanted pierced ears and probably spent the first 12 years of my life fantasizing about them and begging for them. It was a hard NO until i was 12. Reasons for this had to do with decorum, class, and not wanting me to look “tacky” or, dare i say too Italian. She never used the word “ethnic” but it was implied. Propper, waspy youngters of the time waited until their teens to have pierced ears. I think it also had to do with it being a lifetime commitment to change something about your body and thoughts about the age of consent. So after that, i probably spent the next few years self-peircing whatever i felt like at the time. I thought nothing of whipping out a needle in my dorm room and adding some adornment.
So, when this type of “Covid Closure” occurred, my mother knew exactly who she wanted to ask for help.
Another reason this is so funny is because when I was 14 and my ears were long pierced, I recruited my 10 year old sister, who had not reached the age deemed appropriate or the implied age of consent, along with our babysitter, B. – who was 18 and could sign the paper at the piercing pagoda – to get my sister’s ears pierced. I’m fairly certain it was all me that wanted it- not my poor younger sister -and that i orchestrated a minor coup on Mom’s power that day. Something about the irrevocable nature of ear piercing, which could seem innocent, was a strong statement against parental controls. We chose tasteful ruby studs, my sister’s birthstone, and she was very proud and happy. But we really got the wrath of mom for that maneuver and the poor babysitter had no idea what a minefield she was stepping into.
It was with this context and history that I went back to the Piercing Pagoda in the mall this week to “advance” it. The Piercing Pagoda in the mall is the last place you would find my mother, but it was our option. I learned where we could park with an accessible placard, how to get a wheelchair, how many steps to get to the pagoda kiosk, and spoke to the extremely unenthusiastic and bitter woman behind the counter about bringing my 80 year old mother in for a piercing on the following day. It was doable.
Still, after the past few years of living mostly like a shut-in, when the day came, Mom was reluctant to go. “I want you to do it.” She put a plastic back on her shoulder and told me “In case I bleed.” I agreed to at least see if it was an easy poke through to find the old hole. No such luck. She was already wincing although begging me to stab through her ear. “Use a push pin! ” she directed. The trip to the Pagoda was definitely required.
“I haven’t been here since taking you girls to see Santa Clause,” she pronounced from her walker seat when we reached the entrance to the mall. She’s not really a mall person, but more of a QVC VIP. But all in all, it was a great outing, and a beautiful and delightful Pagoda employee professionally performed the deed with a real piercing gun, sterile equipment, and painless successful results.
When it was over i asked if Mom if would like to do or see anything else now that we were in the mall. “NO. I want to get out of here as fast as we can before we get shot.”
On the way home, she wanted stamps from the post office. On a parking hunch, I positioned her Mercedes at the prime parking spot, and the occupying car decided to depart just in time for us to glide in. “You live right!” my mother exclaimed in her sometimes-southern drawl. I had never heard her use this phrase. I realized this was her way of telling me she was grateful, that she approved of me, that she appreciated me, that she thought i might finally be who or where she believed i ought to be. You – Live – Right. It held in three words some of the most sincere kindness i’d experienced in our long lives together.
In the post office, i was unsuccessful in finding the stamps she wanted. “I only want the roll. The plain flags on the roll,” was her directive as she insisted on doling out the cash for them. The postman didn’t have them. I bought sheets of love stamps with kittens and puppies. Subversive, but i knew she’d tolerate it. Back in the car, she thanked me, and we drove on.
When my husband was likely five years old, his family home burnt to the ground. The source of the fire was never confirmed, likely a really good party, or a a really good fight – or both. His memories are filled with smoke, his father’s embrace, a goldfish presented as a confusing saved emblem of the how misunderstood grief can be.
From the den of the family next door, he watched his house in flames through their bay window, while the 70’s classic, Emergency 911 played on the television. Misfitten clothes were gifted, a mother went away somewhere to recover – these images all remain vivid. But perhaps the most brilliant memory was the accompaniment of his descent down the burning stairway in his father’s arms. The treasured vinyl on the turntable stridently sent the chorus of Elton’s “Yellow Brick Road” echoing through his vanishing childhood home.
Is it any wonder, that on the eve of this World Cup in Doha, that this is the song he plays on his Doha piano before kick off swallows him whole?
When are you gonna come down? When are you going to land? I should have stayed on the farm I should have listened to my old man
You know you can’t hold me forever I didn’t sign up with you I’m not a present for your friends to open This boy’s too young to be singing The blues, ah, ah
So goodbye yellow brick road Where the dogs of society howl You can’t plant me in your penthouse I’m going back to my plough
Back to the howling old owl in the woods Hunting the horny back toad Oh, I’ve finally decided my future lies Beyond the yellow brick road Ah, ah
What do you think you’ll do then? I bet they’ll shoot down the plane It’ll take you a couple of vodka and tonics To set you on your feet again
Maybe you’ll get a replacement There’s plenty like me to be found Mongrels who ain’t got a penny Sniffing for tidbits like you On the ground, ah, ah
So goodbye yellow brick road Where the dogs of society howl You can’t plant me in your penthouse I’m going back to my plough
Back to the howling old owl in the woods Hunting the horny back toad Oh, I’ve finally decided my future lies Beyond the yellow brick road
The world will finally hear the story from the perspective of the children who survived it.
Whilst on the topic of displaced people and lost identity…
It’s one of those moments that my small brain holds tight to. A Where were you when? moment… Moon Landing, 9-11 Attacks, Hurricane Katrina.
Pre-trauma, the mind tends to speed up – like when your entire wedding reception is a blur in retrospect. In true trauma, my mind tends to slow W-A-Y, W–A–Y, D — O — W — N… driving a car when it starts flipping and you have time to consider your family … your relationships … your place in the universe … very, slowly, thoughtfully before the full impact of the crash.
Hurricane Katrina was like that. I was a newlywed. I had a new job in Washington DC. We saw the storm coming on the Weather Channel. We saw the images on the victims on TV. We saw the train going off the rails, our brutally unAmerican response. It was the biggest U.S. crisis in my adult life.
“We have to go,” I said to my freshly minted husband.
“Not until we get paid to go,” said his sage mentor.
“We have the skills to help,” I said.
“Let’s see what we can do.”
And we did go. And we did help. The skills of disaster management were natural for us. This was the most meaningful job of my career.
In the aftermath of this American disaster, the children of Katrina were left to manage their own trauma. As humans, seeking the healing we need is our work to do. And there is much to do.
At last we will have a chance to see the perspective of these children in the new HBO documentary from filmmaker Edward Buckles Jr., who was 13 years old during Katrina. Buckles spent seven years documenting the stories of his peers who survived the storm as children and processing his own grief, displacement story, and loss.
If you don’t know where you came from, it’s hard to know where you are going.
Living in the bizarro bubble of Doha has fed a sense of constant floating between identities and locales … yet never really being someone, somewhere, someTHING or truly belonging anywhere.
God bless those who still show up for me, for lately i am but a ghost, mostly.
I miss the movement of people and the stillness of being quiet in a room where some one else is.
The life of an expat is inherently isolating. But when the whole earth is losing her familiar strings that tie here together, am i wasting energy even trying to fasten some?
When J. was a kid, his brother used to sing the Stones song “Never Leave Your Pizza Burning… My back is broad, but it’s a-hurting.”
It’s a been a reference point for many things we get wrong – but think we are right about – for years!
In reprising some oldies, i just learned that Perry Farrel, in possibly the best 2-chord song in history, had written that Jane said she felt naked without her wig. I always heard “Have you seen my wig around? I’ll film that gig without it.”
I prefer it.
Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast is called Revisionist History so i’ll take it.
Never leave your pizza burning.
Do you have some revisionist lyrics like that from youth?
I don’t know what I am. I’m quiet. maybe I’m praying. I don’t know. I don’t even want music.
Are you thinking about the babies? Your babies in Etheopia?
I’m thinking about the whole country. What kind of country is this? When kids go to school, their parents drop them off in the morning. In the end of the day they come to get them, they are just gone. They are stolen and their organs are taken out and then their bodies are thrown out back at the school just like garbage.
And there is no police to tell. No law. No justice. The police are likely the same men who are doing it. The same people you would ask to help and protect you are the ones carving out the organs and throwing the children’s bodies back like garbage. What kind of country is this?
And I’m thinking about the virus. It is there. Two women died in my village and the people are private. They don’t want to say. They say she fell down. But it is everywhere. People are not being honest. And we need to tell each other the truth on this virus. I saw her sick with my own eyes. Her door is 6 steps from mine. I went to them for days, I made coffee for the family; we take care in the tradition when there is a death. But the virus is all around and people don’t want to say.
When I was a kid, our family lived in Bristol and “a river runs through it.” The mighty Delaware‘s source is a stream in upstate New York. By the time it flows downstream in Hancock, New York, it is a sizable two-forked river that then passes many river towns as it winds down past Philadelphia, before emptying its mouth into the Atlantic at the Delaware Bay.
The English settled in Bristol, following William Penn, who made Bristol a stop as he journeyed in his rowing barge to and from Philadelphia and his farmstead, his upriver Pennsbury Manor. A landfill larger than one can imagine now borders Pennsbury Manor, approved by Tullytown Borough, whose landowners now pay no real estate taxes in their Faustian bargain to approve this affront to history and the environment.
In the 40’s Bristol was primarily an old factory town that was first populated by the aristocratic English, then the immigrant Irish and lastly the immigrant Italians. The English lived in the Harriman section of town, the Irish surrounded St. Mark’s Parish, and the Italians, St. Anne’s.
The class boundaries were not well respected by the time I came along, as after marriage, my Dad bought a home on Jackson Street in Harriman with money that was refunded to him by his mother. She had saved his earnings from his labors starting at the age of 14.
I know, what about the spaghetti and crabs. Here is where that comes in. My mother’s mother died when she was 5 years old, so she was raised in her paternal grandmother’s home and her father Pat’s (Pasqual) sister Anne’s home. It was Aunt Annie who first introduced me to the blue claw crab, callinectes sapidus, the” beautiful swimmer”.
Aunt Annie was quite a character. She kept a numbers book for her butcher, Sheik Masandi and a dream book was often on her kitchen table. Friends would drop off food for her, be it vegetables picked in Green Lane Farm’s fields, fish that the men caught in Barnegat Bay, or blue claws from crabbing in Seaside. When a bushel of crabs was dropped off, I was in demand.
Aunt Annie had a way of getting your help with a chore while making you enjoy it. A perfect example was the way nobody cleaned the tile in her bathroom like my sister Sandy. In my case I was a perfect choice to shuck crabs. At age 10 or so, I met the challenge.
Upon a crab delivery the wooden bushel was placed in Aunt Annie’s breezeway next to the kitchen door. I would take the crabs out of the basket and they would hang onto each other in the process. It was next to impossible to remove them one crab at a time. Consequently I would be running all over the driveway, rounding up the runaways. A sneaker-clad foot helped in this process.
One can grab the backside of a crab while it flails away with its claws that can’t reach far enough behind itself to grab the offending hand. This method was not foolproof, but the “grab from behind” technique is still employed by me today.
The procedure of cleaning a live crab begins with grabbing the crab from behind and breaking a claw; the claw just needs to be injured, not torn off. The crab, sensing that an enemy has partially disarmed him, ejects the claw so it is better able to flee its tormentor. Then proceed to the second claw with the same result. The disarmed crab may then be flipped over where the carapace is removed by prying up the flap, thrusting a thumb or knife between the upper shell and the body, and tearing off the shell. The crab is then cleaned of its lungs and dried a bit. It is now ready for sautéing in olive oil before tomato and spice are added to make the sauce.
The crab is cleaned alive because the cook (me) believes that this imparts the best crab flavor to the sauce. My mother wouldn’t mess with a live crab and if I wasn’t around. She would dump the crabs into a pot of boiling water for a minute, and then proceed to remove the shell and clean the crab. Some old timers believed that the water-logged crab lost a little flavor with this method. The compromise is to put the crabs in the freezer to slow them down. Take them out while they are letargico, but work quickly at your peril as they wake quickly as well.
I have been screwing around with the blue claw for close to 70 years. So here are my techniques on the subject dish. Please note that when making spaghetti and crabs, it says spaghetti. Linguini is for clams; spaghetti is for crabs, and I don’t know why.
The Basic Recipe:
Clean the crabs by any of the above methods, then sauté them and the claws in olive oil with garlic, a whole peeled onion and red pepper to taste. I don’t cut up the onion, but cook it whole in the sauce.
As you cook the crabs, the shells turn a bit golden. Be on the generous side with the oil as the crabs are imparting flavor that is carried by the oil. Cook at a moderate temperature, and then add the tomato, broken by hand, or passata, if you can find it. Add some basil or parsley if basil is not available.
I generally take most of the crabs out of the sauce early as the cooking makes the crabmeat mushy. Mushy crabmeat doesn’t appeal to me. Put the crabs back in after the sauce is finished to get the chill off.
I also like steamed crabs and boiled crabs, the later of which I have been doing lately.
Steamed Crabs:
Simply take out your steamer, put an inch or two of water into a large pot, add crabs a handful at a time and a good bit of seasoning as you layer the crabs. Old Bay or some crab boil works as the salt content firms up the meat as they steam. When the crabs turn bright red, go another minute or two and that’s it. I like a bottle of beer instead of all water. Some vinegar in the liquid works as well. This is Maryland style.
If you don’t have a steamer, improvise. Some balled up foil in the bottom of the pot will work, or perhaps you have a rack that can fit into the pot.
Boiled Crabs:
To me this is the best of both worlds as the result is perfectly cooked crabs, as well as great crab gravy for your pasta. You don’t have to choose between good sauce and mushy crabs vs., good crabs and no sauce. Here it is.
Fill a big pot about halfway up with water; add quite a bit of crab boil, a few bay leaves and red wine vinegar. Bring to a rolling boil and then pour in the live crabs. Don’t cook more than a dozen at a time.
Bring the pot back to the boil and cook seven minutes after the second boil. If you look closely some greenish/whitish spots will appear on the shells. If you start to overcook, these spots disappear. Remove the crabs and, when cool enough to handle, tear off the top shells. This makes eating easier and you are ready to spread the newspaper on the table. I like my crabs cold as the meat sets up better, but either way, they should be juicy and tasty. May we say succulent?
Don’t discard the shells. The shells form the base for your gravy. If you just want to eat the crabs, the shells can be frozen and used later for the gravy or a crab bisque soup.
Red Sauce:
Now for the gravy. Dry the top shells with paper towel and then sauté them in oil with the garlic, pepper and onion, as noted above. You are just using shells instead of the crab body. After the shells start to brown add the tomato and basil and simmer partially covered for a good hour of more. The shells impart the flavor so this works well.
Cool the sauce a bit and remove the shells. This will be a great crab sauce without the crabmeat. If you are feeling guilty or want to be opulent, throw a can of crabmeat into the sauce after the sauce is fully cooked. Remember, the canned crab has been pasteurized, and furthermore, it imparts little flavor. Just try making sauce with only a can of crabmeat if you don’t believe me,
So there it is. Eat your boiled crabs as your first course and follow with your pasta and salad. The boiled crabs will be moister than the steamed crabs. They can be stored in the fridge if you want to do everything ahead of time. Then when guests arrive, pour a glass of wine, turn the water up to boil the pasta and make a salad.
Uncle’ Nick’s stone masonry in Bristol, Pennsylvania
Enough on crabs. Did I tell you that Bristol’s churches were segregated? Believe it. The Anglican was for the blue bloods, St. Mark’s was for the Irish and St. Anne’s was for the Italians. What’s wrong with that? It’s understandable that those Micks didn’t want any Wops in St. Marks, and visa versa.
By the way, Aunt Annie’s husband, Uncle Nick, built St. Anne’s, so a Wop builder was acceptable to the congregation. Uncle Nick also built their family’s home with the crab cleaning breezeway. It was the nicest home owned by an Italian immigrant in the town.
And by the way, he also built a home for my parents along the Cooper River in Collingswood where my sister, Sandy lives to this day.
There are a couple of prevailing story lines that have kept me afloat through the pandemic paralysis from Qatar. Landing in the Arabian desert before we quite knew that a microorganism would soon change everything, hope was as it is before a war. Full of thoughts about what restaurants we’d try and countries to visit, we were trivial and lighthearted then. Docile, naive, brash, superficial, careless…. we were ripe for the picking.
Within a few hours of my arrival, Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Crisis Management announced the cessation of scheduled passenger aviation.
The foreseeable had been usurped by the unforeseeable. The anticipated, expat trajectory of relocation and acclimation to cultural context no longer held relevance. Our maps and charts were decimated, a yet discovered pandemic course in their place. Humanity had been transplanted without a plan, and societal norms lay in its wake.
Our new flat was empty and echoing, harsh and bare, a film of concrete dust settling from fresh construction. A reluctant home base with Eeyore at bat and unlimited innings to come. The country’s labour force was abruptly confined to the industrial area. Hard perimeters delineated a city within a city, as a nation state began to confront an enemy who feeds on a recipe of mosaic allure that is the gem called Doha.
Our foreboding and formidable new world crept in with a crash. My personal transition, made more blunt by an absence of anything familiar, seemed amplified by the news that shops had been closed for our protection. Outside our austere confinement cell, breathing air with other humans was suddenly life-threatening, and there was a sense that things were about to fiercely deteriorate.
The author ponders a life of nautical solitude during pandemic isolation
It was then that I decided to take up yachting – an all-encompassing theme, much larger than a fantasy, stronger than denial, and grander than an imaginary friend. By mid-March, we had selected our voyage: an intimate tour of the Persian Gulf. We took only our two dogs with us, ensuring a purely private and intimate high-seas retreat. Elaborate and enduring, my mythical reality grows more credible every day.
In the letter to our family and friends, we would say:
Dear Ones,
We have taken the decision to restore our meditative lives through an extended nautical retreat. Our focus will be on contemplation, music, art, yoga and literature. Where our inner life of late has become shallow and inconsistent on land, this secluded nautical excursion promises to revive and refresh us, as well as deepen our connection with you, our loved ones, and with all of humanity. We are grateful for this rare opportunity and look forward to seeing you upon our return, when the virus allows. “
Grand aspirations, i realize, but i think this is what’s actually been happening. The joy of yachting has proven to be the most effective and enduring identity available. More than a daydream – it’s become an optimal, conscripted lifestyle. A calling even.
At first it was hard to imagine that yachting could be saving lives – or that by going inside, we could be doing a bigger service to humanity and to the planet than going outside ourselves. Creating a smaller, more intentional life does feel surprisingly impactful. It’s part of what Carmelite nuns, Tibetan monks, and contemplatives of all types have been trying to tell us for centuries. It’s possible that service can be contemplation – or in this case – just staying out of everybody’s way can be of service.
By the age of 3 or 4, i had adopted the identity of a Lakota Sioux girl, and subsequently, a young Timbavati lion. Encapsulated on our boat, it wasn’t difficult to convince myself to immerse in uninterrupted gazing at turquoise waters and pristine beaches while safeguarding our lives. It’s like saying i spent a couple of years as a fish, as a Parisian, as a Campbell, as a member of the royal family. In 2020, i spent my year at sea.
As our excursion progressed, chandlers and cargo vessels sprung up and more and more provisions were delivered. Internet was installed, our fantasy enhanced over Zoom by our vivid, ‘actual’ backdrop – the one we all agreed was the real world – complete with saxe-blue seas and mathematically-spaced palm trees, outshining any that could be digitally created or edited. The backdrop is real, the rest of my story, apocryphal.
As you and I will only ever experience this writing digitally, and likely only meet each other virtually, I recommend some etheral ambient music to accompany your read, as we sail through one version of the Great Adjustment. With so much to mourn and to fear, I find atmospheric, dreamy music helps me to remain focused on the uplifting.
Our round dachshund, Pearl, who has put on a few pandemic pounds and has been dieting of late, climbed up on a chair and slurped up this baby in an instant when i had glanced away. I had to chat with a virtual vet to ensure she wasn’t poisoned by the alcohol i was using. (he was not alive when i found him). At least we have the photo.
Like the Great Depression, we are living through something that will indelibly mark ours and future generations of humans. I save the waxy rind of parmesan cheese for future soup broths because during the 1930’s, my grandmother learned to squeeze every ounce of purpose and flavor out of every available ingredient. Scarcity and isolation nurture different competencies than Easy Street. I resisted the identity of writer for a lifetime, chiefly because I feared the compulsory aloneness which defines it. The pandemic got me writing because we might die, and I never said “it” to anyone. During the Great Adjustment, I’ve learned how to pickle vegetables so that they last longer and to re-use everything I was previously thoughtless about. I may not be able to ever get another fill-in-the-blank. I have also stopped misplacing things. I know whatever I’m looking for is either within the salon or the main cabin, so no need to panic that I might have lost it. I never disembark and no one ever comes aboard. There is a sense of total accountability in that.
I’ve never been a good minimalist, but when you have only four forks, you’re going to wash them right away so that you can eat again. That’s what running a tight ship means! There is a soft minimalism on our yacht. Very soft. Yet even I have grown to appreciate the limitations our Great Adjustment lives demand. When “reality” is intolerable or antithetical to sanity, yachting becomes imperative. We swab the deck daily to keep the sand and the bougainvillea blossoms at bay.
Among the awkward benefits of yachting is its supreme exclusivity. We have no additional crew. We’ve grown more conscious and grateful for relationships to others, known and unknown to us. While the moral imperatives demanded by climate change action didn’t quite get through to us all, perhaps this will.
The planet has been in a state of expansive disrepair for quite a while now. Yachting is the sensation of a dreamer tumbling into the deepest, endless darkness, yet caught by gravity, and abruptly shuttled in a novel direction between light and dark and taking off like a rocket all at once.
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
-Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Time is negligible while yachting, and space moves on all sides, easing navigation of our lonely flotilla of somber, mandatory luxury. A meditative calm hangs in the air, and formerly elusive qualities like industry, ingenuity and creativity flow. Months into our journey, we’ve fashioned a lovely stateroom, a galley offering organic menus, an upper deck garden, an infirmary, barber shop, and spa. Daily yoga classes, piano and guitar intensives, and a broad range of wellness modalities are featured on the main deck. Celestial events, like the dazzling ring-of-fire solar eclipse and the many moons of Ramadan, can be relished from the upper deck.
For the first few months, it was forbidden to venture from the rig, but once permission was granted, we secured a tender and approval to touch the water. We now swim straight off the bow, paddle toward a nearby islet, and steep our thirsty bodies in a gentle, ultramarine water-cosmos. The sea cradles us in a big, warm briny womb; remineralizing, hydrating, arousing our cells and souls.
The world on the other side of the surface overwhelms with strange familiarity, coaxing out breath, movement, prayer, and a hunch that if I get right with these fish, I’ll get right with myself, and that somehow this integral alignment will help you. It’s the hunch that inner work matters, and that we finally have time and space to devote to that – and what else can you do at sea for months but swab the deck and get right?
Three jellyfish stung me on my first swim back to the mothership. I have the hunch that intention could save us from ourselves. Inshā’Allah.
I think we will call her Inshā’Allah.
Thank you to the Foxhole Girls for playing along and making yachting less lonesome and for always bringing the loving perspective that sustains.
What’s he been up to? I am asking J while washing dishes in the kitchen. I have no idea, he tells me. J. is confounded – but happy. What did he say about where he’s been? I wanted an explanation. He didn’t say, J. tells me. All we know is that Brad is back.
We are discussing our new neighbour, Brad. Given the lockdown since my arrival in Qatar, Brad is one of only two neighbors i have had the pleasure of meeting in our new country. He lives in the complex that includes our flat, and hundreds of others, on a manmade series of islands called The Pearl.
A Qatari family isolates on the corniche at the Pearl, Doha
Brad routinely sits on a wall near the exit of the carpark, gazing at a patch of Arabian seawater or scrutinizing the humanity, dog, bird, and cat life of our distanced community, as we all mill around the block while trying not to interact. We usually see him when we take our dogs for a walk. Sometimes he is strolling casually with his wife on the manicured lawn below the date palms that line our street. We all say hello, keeping an appropriate social and physical distance, like good neighbours in Covid times.
Brad is passerine, and strikingly bald. For a myna bird, his appearance seems unique. I mean he really stands out. It’s not simply as though he was trapped mid-molt; this bird is brilliantly bare from his shoulders up – resplendently plume-free; sporting rosy-pink, wrinkly, featherless skin, like an elderly baby.
Brad and his wife on The Pearl with blonde ornamental tall grass behind them
It seemed obvious and tragic when he disappeared. We had feared the other birds were uncool with Brad’s brazen differentness, his ostentatious attitude and his fluffy wife. On a block where palaces and peacocks and flamboyant trees are de rigor, a bald myna bird hadn’t much of a chance.
Still, we searched for him hopefully on every walk since he went missing, and spoke of him daily – for a while anyway. After some time, we stopped mentioning it. Brad was just another thing to be sad about. Put it on the pile with Will we ever see our parents again in our life time? and Will we hug our friends or children before we die? Annoyed at nature’s predictable cruelty, we stopped looking for Brad, and as i couldn’t pick out his feathery wife among the crowd, i assumed she had moved on. All the mynas seemed common after we lost Brad.
There is an ornamental fountain grass grown in many of the gardens in our neigbourhood. It grows in shades of blonde and blush, burgundy and purple It stands about half my height and lends soft movement to the hot stillness through its windy dance. To touch it is a gentle reconnection to filmy remote dreams and memories of the kindness of longed-for goodnight kisses. You’re apt to pet it more than touch it. The myna birds love its deep, gossamer foliage as much as we do, and we all seem tempted to play with the silly and elegant grass as we glide around the block, not talking or coming too close to each other.
J. hurried into the kitchen Thursday morning to tell me good news – he had seen Brad and his wife, looking well and hanging out under the date palms, as usual. We saw the first circle that evening.
It had been carefully fashioned from burgundy reeds and very deliberately placed on a bush with purple flowers, just beside the pedestrian walkway. I imagined it a signal of a clandestine meeting spot or perhaps a marker for a hidden spare key. How clever. Whatever the meaning, it was something secret – probably between two people – and probably good.
On the last day of Ramadan, we headed out before sundown, timing our walk for mosque-adjacency during the call to prayer. No one can go in to pray, so we thought we would just stand nearby. Afterward, we took a longer-than-usual walk about the ‘hood. That’s when we started seeing more.
By Friday morning, it became sport.
Maybe it was a scavenger hunt, or perhaps a game between old friends, friends who cannot gather under lockdown. Maybe a group of scientists are sending reports to each other with circles made of grass about environmental changes. Perhaps they are critical messages between spies or they could be a way to profess love to others when a virus prevents touching or even seeing another person’s smile.
J. and i tried making our own little grass circles, weaving and shaping to replicate the urban meadow rings. Ours didn’t hold up. It was surprisingly impossible to recreate them.
On that one walk, little wreaths showed up everywhere and we discovered each one with great delight. They rested on flowering bushes, decorated branches of trees, adorned the concrete walking paths. Some were even displayed from thick hedges surrounding palaces.
I have a lot of theories and fantasies about the grass circles. I don’t know if any are true – but the tiny garlands do seem to be a sign of life.
Maybe Brad left some crowns around town for his gorgeous wife.
Or maybe it’s just how Brad and his friends build their nests. Since that Friday walk about, we haven’t seen any more grass circles.
The crescent moon came up, so magnificent that friends on multiple continents remarked about its beauty. The advent of this blessed month was announced by the Moon Sighting Committee. It was an auspicious start for Ramadan 2020. The call to prayer echoing from the mosques, which has urged the faithful for 13 centuries to “Come Pray!” now implores followers to “Pray at home!”
In Ramadan’s month-long focus on introspection, charity, and self discipline, 2020 has the world’s population captive and humanity synchronously practicing these principles, while facing our individual and collective fears and vulnerabilities.
I’m always struck by the phrase ‘Shelter in Place’. Growing up during the cold war, i associated a shelter with a response to a chemical or radiological event. Shelter is a powerful word. It may be shelter from the storm, protection from an air raid, a safe place for a refugee, the homeless, destitute, stateless, the outcast, victims of violence, lost or discarded animals. You could also lead a sheltered life, receive shelter from family, friends or strangers, reduce liability in a tax shelter or wait for a bus there. It has an essence of spiritual meaning to “take shelter” or “give shelter” or “seek shelter” or “find shelter” in times of suffering. Shelter offers solace. So sheltering in place requires us to find solace within ourselves.
On May 13th, the anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima’s appearance in Portugal, my amazing Aunt S. sent me a photo of a crimson-red rose she cut from a plant my grandmother Stella planted so many years ago. Stella had planted the roses in honor of the Blessed Mother. Aunt S. says she hasn’t been giving the rose plant much attention, but this year she will give it some food and prune it in honor of her mother. She prays diligently, for all of us, looking out at these roses, each day.
I have a bracelet given to me by my darling D. and Z. They created much of the jewelry i have worn for the past decade. The bracelet reads GAMBLE EVERYTHING FOR LOVE IF YOU’RE A TRUE HUMAN BEING.
Transformation is fucking hard. And usually we have a lot more distractions available. Life is a gamble. A real Hail Mary.
Gamble everything for love, if you’re a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty. You set out to find God, but then you keep stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses. Don’t wait any longer. Dive in the ocean, leave, and let the sea be you. Silent, absent, walking an empty road, all praise.
–Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī
The Eid Al-Fitr holiday will begin tomorrow in Qatar. It was announced today by the Amiri Diwan, the seat of rule and administrative offices of HH The Amir. Eid Mubarak. Happy Eid!
As a world, we are working our way through the evolution of salutations. I have heard some different new sign-offs of late: to our loved ones, from a TV anchor, from strangers on customer service phone calls. “Stay safe.” “Be safe.” “Hope everyone in your world is staying healthy!” Your world. My World.
Is there a World flag?
If there is, we should fly it.
In 1970, James W. Cadle, a farmer from Homer, Illinois, created his own version of a Flag of Earth.
During a psychedelic moment in Amsterdam, a friend once mirthfully said to me, “Death is near… but not near me.” We were seated, giggling, at an outdoor cafe. I didn’t see Death, but our squad took his word for it.
When death is near, things tend to get profound
When death is near, things tend to get profound – and at times – darkly amusing. Our brains, between waves of panic, find pools of calm where we make connections on kaleidoscopic levels.
My Uncle Frank ( an incredible teacher, coach, family patriarch and documentarian); Kate (my dear friend, fashion entrepreneur and activist, mother of two darling young girls); Little Richard (my first cognizant toddling memory of a tv image). These are just a few who passed away in the recent days of the shitdown, each warranting proper memorializing. We kind of barely spoke of it. It’s untenable when death is so near and we have lost the luxury of mourning losses per our pre-Covid conventions. Our brains and hearts can’t metabolize so much collective and personal loss and trauma all at once. Bodies are piling up in unusual places and services with tears-in-physical-proximity-to-loved-ones are verboten.
Kate Kruger (December 29, 1973 – April 11, 2020) with her girls. Uncle Frank Greco, family historian. (February 1, 1932 – March 18, 2020)The legendary Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020)
Zooming with my Foxhole girls, B said it best. The data is fierce, said B, we are NOT every man for himself. At the same time, we are finding ways to be more self-reliant.
The thought of my absence from my father’s side as he went through chemoradiation would have been unimaginable before The Great Adjustment. He sent a photo of what he calls his Hannibal Lector disguise, the bespoke computer-designed thermoplastic mask that held his head to the table during treatment these past few weeks.
Masks give us quite a lot to unpack, both as a symbol and a tool.
I mean masks give us quite a lot to unpack – both as a symbol and now as a tool. Maybe that’s why masking is so provocative and charged. Images of face coverings stir us emotionally and culturally with ramifications that may be both practical and archetypal.
Where are we on a spectrum, where what was once disturbing and uncomfortable, becomes a lifeline to survival?
I’ve taken to ironing the sheets. I recall telling J., back in winter, that we could move to Doha if i could have freshly ironed sheets every day. That’s how spoiled i intended to be.
Well, now i have them. Ain’t if funny how life plays out sometimes.
For the most part, doing the laundry and other housework has become a meditative and comforting activity, helping to shape the amorphous hours and days of the shitdown.
Bilbo loves to help make the bed so he can tunnel in later.
I think about my grandmother and how she even had one of those machines for ironing sheets in her basement laundry room.
She would always put on a “housedress” for her duties of cooking and cleaning and then change into a proper dress later to go out shopping or have dinner – always looking great and put-together in public or when “company” officially came by. The housedress signaled a time for chores, but also signaled an off-duty status; a respite from public presentation. As a child, i equated her housedresses to my “playclothes.”
These designations remind of the loungewear/ activewear everyone is donning in their super-private lives right now, at least from the waist down. My foxhole girls sent me a package of cuddly clothes which are the equivalent of modern-day, luxury housedress for me.
Suiting up in the housedress was also about performing tasks properly, prioritizing household management as a craft, and executing every domestic duty with great pride. I’m usually really into aprons, which are like that as well. Speaking of housework, I discovered this book in 2006, and have referred to it and calmed myself with it so many times through the years. I think it’s available electronically now. H., i think i gave you a copy? M., you can find it in the casita. ❤️
Back to the housework garb, i grew up watching women doing housework in headscarves and i tend to tie-one-on when it’s time to get to housework. Headscarves have traditionally filled practical purposes – to keep hair out of food, protect from sun, etc. – and to supply that get-to-interior-chores-uniform signal. The older Italian women would tie a “moppine,” the Italian-American lenition of the word for dish towel, on their heads. Our housekeeper P. at my parents house was another role model. Not only did she wear a housedress, but always had a kerchief tied on her head.
The kerchief history for black Americans has been a complicated one. Enslaved black women in the antebellum South were required to wear kerchiefs of acceptable humble fabric not only for practicality, but to designate their inferior status. The reclamation of the headwrap to become a powerful expression of identity has occurred in during my lifetime.
And now, living on the Arabian Peninsula, the importance of headdressing – for both men and women – has become something i’m pondering quite a lot. The headdress has signified both oppression and power, progression and regression, imprisonment and liberation. Maybe more on that later.
My trainer has been trying to teach me how to use compressed energy to create true and compelling impulsion for years. Even anxious energy. After years of practice, sometimes even unconsciously for me, the magical re-alignment occurs.
The half-halt is a signal from an equestrian to horse that encourages rebalance.
A concatenation of driving aids and restraining aids are communicated from rider to horse, creating pause, without interrupting the flow. Half-halting requests the horse to prepare to halt, thus returning its body to balance, and then utilizes the energy created by this constraint to propel into a more true and compelling version of its forward gait.
Physically, the horse’s spine lifts, and the body gets aligned and organized. Another cool output is the mental rebalancing and reconnection between rider and animal in a split-second, almost psychically-transmitted acknowledgement of something that is happening both in the CURRENT moment of movement together, and simultaneously in the anticipation of something that is about to happen in the NEXT moment.
Today i learned how to get water delivered to our door in Doha. It’s wonderful, as it was one of the items i was stressing about being able to procure. The tap water is too salty for drinking for us or the dogs to drink regularly.
The relief of having potable water available highlights another one of my new life roles. Procurement. A critical function in the Covid world. I also learned about so many people back home in the US waiting in line for food and the lack of connection between farmers, who are losing crops for lack of restaurants to supply, and foodbanks and families who could use them.
Again, profundity seems increased in an unfamiliar supply chain and community and in a weird world that’s devolving and evolving simultaneously, everywhere, every day. Bottom line, procurement sparks gratitude daily. I have never been good at being a minimalist, but right now there are so many items that are genuinely thrilling to have around, day, by day, by day.
As the local delivery economy here creaks into a new Covid gear every few hours, i try to research and adapt. The restaurant take-away and delivery system here is pretty amazing. It’s the success of the Dabbawalas, in reverse – these guys are on fire. Services like “Talabat” buzz through the city on mini-motorcycles. Doha was already built on a robust delivery system for restaurants pre-Covid. They are figuring out how to add items and even new small suppliers seem to pop up every day. Other things are promised, but not ready yet; apps and online shops appear, and quickly fail in beta. Since i arrived for the shitdown, Ikea will be open for 2 days, then closed for 3, then open for delivery again. Vendors are changing messaging and operations as Ministry of Health standards and compliance update regularly and demand excels exponentially, like the Covid numbers and the rules of life play.
Delivery cycles zoom food through the city
Locals are preparing for Ramadan, which increases demand as well. I have employed a strategy of always having an open order, and if they call every week or so, I see what they actually have in stock that could be delivered. A couple of big Indian grocery stores will deliver things, if you plan about 10 days out. So horde ahead! It simply requires a little planning and a different approach to shopping. I stay up late and wait for things to become available online or delivery slots to open up for a a week or two in the future. Dishwasher soap, bleach, dog food and paper towels have presented a worthy challenge. The dogs are happy to subsist on sardines and rice. Then yesterday I found a new vendor that will send over Snickers, Clorox, kitchen rolls and American potato chips. It’s likely some one in a flat near mine, who is heading to Carrfour weekly and knows just what we wish for. The farmer’s market just put up an online portal and brings beautiful things within 3 days. We have a weekly box of organic vegetables, thanks to our wonderful neighbor sharing her delivery with us. Fabulous. Seeds and soil – we have some. We even got internet and TV installed yesterday! ‘Restarted quarantine but it seemed worth it. We are well pretty set-up now.
Local goodies from the farmers market – newly available online
In one of my classic, crazy packing moves, i brought along our hammock from NM. It probably cost me $50 bucks in baggage fees just to fly with it, but it turned out to be money well spent. It is one of the most critical items we have. On our rooftop, which is very large but very empty. – currently a giant, dusty, hot, cement slab – J and i are up in there in there at night like Robinson Crusoe. Without the captives, mutineers, and cannibals yet, of course. Thank goodness, we brought our kitchen knives from Dad along.
La vie en Rose
Below is a list of just some of the things i’m so grateful to have found a way to source. Every day a couple seem to be added.
A rug, sofa, scissors, slippers, flowers, chicken, eggs, soap, internet, tea kettle, dish towels, houseplant, coffee mugs. So many little things i never had to miss before. We have moved way past camping now and glamping is way more fun long-term. Still dreaming of a mini trampoline which is rumoured to be on the way, loungewear (why did i give up my cashmere sweatsuit? 😂), an abaya (seriously, i want one and can’t get one – and all i want right now is to wear is something black with my face covered – not to worry, can’t go out yet), a deck of cards, and most of all books – how i miss them. Someday, i’ll hug people and touch a horse again. But seriously, we are grateful, grateful, grateful, and most of all for all of you. ❤️
