Bedouins, Camels and Viagra

As some of you know, Ralf and I just got back from a week in Egypt, specifically in Sharm el Sheikh, which is a small beach community near the Sinai national park that is inhabited largely by Bedouins.

Sadly, no one got my 'Bedouin Breakfast' pun about our hotel. I tell you, my wit feels wasted sometimes.

Our favorite pasttime during the week was to sit in what we referred to as the 'Hooka Shack', a quiet beachfront shisha bar where you can sip Bedouin tea (black tea with lots of sugar in a little pot) and smoke an enormous water bong while reading and watching the waves.

We also went diving, although I had to give it up after the first day due to ear problems. It's sad, really. I am a Padi certified advanced diver. I have done night dives, retrieval dives, navigation dives, wreck dives, shore dives, boat dives and deep dives. I can take all my gear off (mask, oxygen, the works) 20 meters under water, swim away from it, swim back and put it all back on without panicking (much) and dying a horrible oxygen deprived death.

I don't enjoy doing these things, you understand, but I can.

Nonetheless I have an ongoing battle with my ears and usually have to stop diving and go to the doctor before the end of each vacation. You may be wondering how I got certified in the first place, to which I can only respond, 'Sheer bloodymindedness.'

Still, I didn't mind skipping it this time. What with one thing and another, I was happy not to dress up in a rubber suit and lug around a heavy oxygen tank. I carefully divided my vacation time between lounging about, snorkling, sipping tea, staring at the horizon, reading and visiting my friend Barbara, who is lucky enough to call the desert her home.

And now two tableaus from our vacation involving Bedouins, camels and Viagra - I know you're gonna jump right to the Viagra one:

Tableau 1: The Father In Law
One of the dive instructors was a friendly Bedouin fellow named Nur, who's married to the boss's daughter. After Ralf's first dive on the second day (I was on the boat but not diving) Nur got a radio call from Umbi, the boss and his FIL, to bring our boat out to Umbi's yacht during the lunch break. Apparently, Umbi had dropped something in the water and wanted Nur to dive for it. Nur rolled his eyes and muttered, 'It's probably a coffee spoon,' then slouched off to get suited up again. When we reached the yacht, Umbi waved at us good-naturedly and Ralf asked him if he always makes his poor SIL do extra work for him. Umbi grinned and answered, 'Nur was supposed to pay me 5 camels for my daughter and I haven't seen a single camel yet. He owes me!'

Tableau 2: The Viagra
After I visited the doctor and was told I would be fine in a week but would have to take a break from diving, we stopped by the pharmacy to get some medicine to speed up the re-absorbtion of the blood that had pooled behind my traumatized eardrums. Uh... TMI? Anyway, we got the medicine (everything for about $2, it's SOOO cheap!) and the pharmacist looked at me, looked at Ralf, grinned suggestively and handed him a free packet of Viagra. Ralf, not to be outdone, grinned back even more suggestively and returned the packet. I didn't quite catch what the pharmacist said as we left but it sounded a bit like, 'Strong man!'

Pictures here and here.

More Egypt Pictures - Story to Follow

Amazing Pictures

Does this count? I think it's pretty amazing that I'm making it public.

More (less) amazing pictures to follow soon...

Walk like an....

I'm going on vacation for a week so don't be alarmed if I'm MIA.

Guess where I'm going... A hint: It's not a Bangles concert.

Confucious say... (can't take credit for this one)

Confucius say,

"If you are in a book store and cannot find

the book for which you search, you are obviously in the....

Who wants to look like Barbie?

Despite my efforts to minimize my daughters' exposure to the Barbie brand, we inherited a Barbie Farietopia movie: The Magic of the Rainbow.

What can I say, it was GREAT! I was totally sucked in. So, against my better judgement I went ahead and ordered the other movies in the series.

K: Why didn't you want to order them?

Me: Well, darling, some people think Barbie dolls make little girls think they need to look like Barbie. And I want you to know you're beautiful the way you are.

K (frowning at me like I just said something crazy): Who wants to look like Barbie?? She's not even real!

Well, what do you know? A new generation of smarter women.

Me: And you know you're beautiful just like you are, right?

K (shrugging): Yes.

Me: And you know it doesn't matter, it's what's inside that counts, right?

K (complacently): Uh huh. But I'm beautiful, too.

I am such an amazing mother.

Ooops - Chop the Hazelnuts!

My last post, which was a recipe for chocolate hazelnut biscotti, had a mistake: I forgot to add that the roasted hazelnuts should be coursely chopped.

I fixed it.

Sorry.

Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti

Amazingly, nothing funny or embarassing has happened to me for several days, unless you could L inquiring hopefully if she gets all our money when we die.

Therefore I am going to take this opportunity to document a secret family recipe for Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti that taste divine in the morning with a cuppa.

Ready for bliss? Here we go:

You'll need:
7 oz (200 g) hazelnuts
7.5oz (215 g) flour
3.5 oz (100 g) sugar (and remember that raw is more ayurvedic than white)
dash of salt
half tsp cinnamon (optional)
half tsp baking powder
2 eggs
block of dark baking chocolate

Roast half the hazelnuts in a non-stick pan until a bit browned and grind the other half.

Chop the roasted hazelnuts into smaller pieces - just spread them on a cutting board and use a knife to chop them coarsely.

Mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and ground nuts in a bowl.

Add eggs and mix - you probably need to use your hands. It's worth it.

Make two long, flat loaves.

Bake 20 minutes at 375 F/190 C.

Remove and cut the loaves into individual biscotti.

Now bake again (biscotti means 'baked twice, get it?) at 275 F/140 C for 25 minutes.

Allow to cool while you melt the chocolate, ideally using a double boiler or put one pan on top of another pan that has boiling water in it.

Spread the melted chocolate on the biscotti.

Stick in the fridge so the chocolate can harden - once hardened you can put them in a cookie jar or tupperware.

Enjoy!

Really?

L (my 4-year-old): Mommy did you go to the dentist when you were a kid?

Me: Sure, honey.

L: Did you go to my dentist?

An uncomfortable silence.

Me: Ah, no. I don't think she was born yet.

On God and Ayurveda

My 4-year-old daughter L has this to say about God: I want to be God. He doesn't have to wear socks.

I think that sums it up way better than that stupid Lord's prayer about dying in your sleep.

Last weekend I attended a class on Ayurveda cooking. The instructor was in her mid-to-late 40s and had clear, unlined skin and calm, alert eyes that caught my attention. In the past I have pondered why so many health food junkies who eat lots of raw vegetables always look gamey instead of healthy. Ayurveda philosophy answers this question and others.


Ayurveda boils down to three key points, or at least these are the three points I came away with:

1) Love food. Prepare food with love, eat with attention and enjoyment. (Parents of small children have permission to laugh here.) When you cook, the food receives your energy, positive or negative. Stir with intent.

2) Be satisfied after a meal. This means you have to include all flavors (sweet, sour, spicy, salty, bitter, etc.) or you will be left wanting. Order is also important - for example, it is best to end a meal with a bitter flavor so you feel satisfied and don't keep eating, which means salads do better as a final course than a starter.

3) Take care of your digestion. Eat foods that are quickly digested in order to get rid of inevitable toxins as quickly as possible. This is the key to staying healthy. Completely raw food is not recommended because it takes longer to digest. Ditto cold food.

Some of the healthiest foods are: organic chicken, olive oil, radiccio (that bitter purple cabagey thing you use in salads), tumeric, garlic, organic milk, oats, walnuts, broccoli, salmon, herbal tea, apples, lentils.

Some general tips for more Aryuvedic eating:

1. Drink warm water once or twice a day.
2. Don't cook honey. (It's apparently toxic)
3. Speaking of toxic, don't cook with olive oil or butter, either. Olive oil is very healthy but not when cooked. Use ghee or coconut oil to cook.
4. Never use sunflower oil, cooked or otherwise.
5. Avoid eating animals that can't sweat, such as pigs and mussels. They build up toxins.
6. Eat dairy products alone, don't mix with, say, fruit. An exception is mangos, so mango lassis are very good - just throw fresh mango, plain yogurt and a bit of water in the blender. Yum!
7. The fresher the better.
8. Eat real food, not processed. So, raw sugar is better than white processed sugar.
9. Go easy on raw and/or cold food. Don't mix fruit with other foods, give it time to digest first.
10. Try not to use a microwave - it pretty much kills the food. Best is fresh cooked meals, if you must reheat use a pan or a steamer.
11. Don't eat until you're hungry, then eat until you're satisfied.
12. Your stomach is about the size of two fists. Try not to eat more than that at each meal.

How to make your own ghee:

Ghee is butter that has been cooked to produce curds then filtered to remove them. The curds are basically animal fats and additives and are toxic when cooked, not to mention high in cholesterol. Starting with a good organic butter, cook it in a small pot on the stove. As it melts scoop off the foam with a spoon. It will boil and slowly clarify, producing small white curds. When the curds just begin to brown, filter into a jar using an unbleached cheese cloth or coffee filter. You can cook with this - nice flavor - and it never goes bad.

Now, this is a lot of work but what convinced me is that the remaining curds can be used as a moisturizing facial scrub and mask. Of course, if you don't wash it off thoroughly you will smell like rancid butter but your skin will be luminous.

Scheisse happens

I've been reflecting on how I ended up in Germany. The obvious answer is that I'm married to a German but it's not that simple. It kind of evolved through a series of events.

Years ago I was an application developer, managing a small team responsible for designing and implemeting an HR solution for the Japanese market. About midway through the development cycle someone had the bright idea to split up the functional and technical teams, both of which I managed along with the QA team.

I resisted as long as I could and since my team was working on the biggest and most complex product requirements of the release I had a lot of say - until the release was over, that is, and then they calmly carried out their diabolical plan to make me specialize. Everyone else had already made the switch and I was the last hard core generalist standing.

Given the choice between functional work (i.e., defining requirements and designing solutions) and technical work (implementing solutions) I chose the functional path because it seemed to be the rarer skill, by which I mean that fewer people seemed to be good at it. Most of the people I worked with were either subject matter experts with no design skills or technical experts who designed like engineers - i.e., for other engineers. Few of them were what I considered great application designers so it seemed like a promising niche.

(For an example of engineer-driven design, go use gmail. I hope Google doesn't blow up my blog or delete all my contacts for saying that - and I'm thinking I won't be Blog of Note any time soon - but it needed to be said.)

Not long after I felt underchallenged in my new specialized role so I made a decision to leave the US and spend an exciting year or so abroad. Oh, and I also planned to marry Ralf, whom I'd met on the job, but I couldn't count on that happening so mostly I was inviting the universe to fall in with my ideas.

The tricky bit was finding a job in Europe when my only other languages were Japanese and Russian. I put my name 'out there' and was offered a job in the European sales team at the same company, which I eagerly accepted. Accordingly, I quit my job as functional analyst and put the paperwork in motion to move abroad.

Then disaster struck.

A couple of weeks before my planned departure date the offer was withdrawn! They decided to give the job to someone else already living in Europe, AFTER making me a formal offer. Rotten, I know, but believe it or not people pull crappy stunts like that all the time. Unfortunately, this particular crappy stunt left me jobless, homeless and with not much of a savings.

The good news is that I was also single, mobile and good at my job so I didn't despair. Much. And sure enough, about three days later I got a call from the manager of the German sales team with an offer. A bit less money but based in Germany. The only catch was that I had to learn German but they would pay for lessons.

What, am I stupid? I jumped at it! Ten days later I was in Munich struggling to learn German well enough to do a passable sales demo as well as learn a completely unfamiliar product area, because right after hiring me my manager was demoted to head up the financials product, rather than all products. Now, I'm a smart cookie, but there are limits to human ability and there was no way I'd be up to speed any time soon.

That's a fancy way of saying I sucked.

Meanwhile the manager of the consulting organization adopted the strange and offputting habit of coming to the door of the sales room to glare at me several times a day. We're talking resentful glares of hatred here and I really didn't understand what I'd done to offend him. My German manager soon clarified the matter: One of the key projects was dying a slow hideous death and they needed someone with my skills to save it - and meanwhile here I was wasting everyone's time trying to sell products I knew nothing about in a language I couldn't speak!

When he put it that way it kind of made sense. So, to make a long story short, I was soon after absorbed into the consulting group, helped save the project, got promoted to project manager (accompanied by more glares of hatred - I learned later it was his only expression), managed another project then joined the product strategy group. And married Ralf. Over time we had two kids and left our jobs to join a start up company.

Blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, my point is that some of these changes were planned by me, whereas others just kind of happened. And really, that's the way things go in life. You're never prepared for the sucker punches and you never know what will turn up when they happen. Also, there are a lot of great people out there, like my awesome German boss who offered to stand up for me and even get fired if I didn't want to change jobs.

(He has since emigrated to Ireland and is now a professional chef. Not because of me. Probably.)

You just never know. That's what faith is for.

The Help and The Bachelor

My book club just read The Help. At first I thought, Oh, no, not another book about oppressed blacks. I mean, I grew up in LA where people mainly oppress the Mexicans, so black oppression is not a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Plus I was afraid it would be sad and I'm all about happy down time.

Still, both my book clubs (California and Germany) are reading this book so it was like a twofer and I dutifully ordered it and started reading. And it was AWESOME. What a fine, well-written book. I highly recommend it. That's all I'm saying.

Last night I watched The Bachelor at my friends' house. It was the final episode where Jake chooses Verruca over Placenta, or whatever their names were. After several clearly scripted dates, the main point of which was to show off three sets of oversized fake white teeth, we were treated to a drawn out taking leave of Placenta, during which she wept and thanked Jake for showing her how to love again. After Verruca got her ring and recited a touching speech about soul mates there was a talk show to discuss why on earth Jake prefered Verruca over Placenta.

The talk show host actually said, 'America is talking about this,' and I thought, 'Yeah, right, people don't have anything better to talk about.'

Little did I know. This morning in the car Jake's controversial choice actually was the big topic on every radio station I tried.

I feel so current.