February update

Catch up time. I’m lagging behind again and I feel like the lazy letter-writer. Since Groundhog Day Yasmin and I have been to Winterfest at the local museum and nature centre. Ahmed was in Europe for the week so we had to go by ourselves, but we met up with the family of one of Yasmin’s school friends to expand the numbers and increase the fun quotient. There was a very large man-made mountain of snow for sledding, winter hayrides, broom hockey, throw the ring over the snowman, mechanical moose, reindeer and polar bears to ride, an ice-carving demonstration, a frozen lake rescue demonstration by the local Fire Dept., and of course hot dogs and hamburgers for sale. Yasmin had a ride on a reindeer I think it was, and then we tried sledding for the first time. They conveniently sold plastic disc sleds on-site so I got suckered into buying one and the two of us joined a bunch of others tackling a large, slippery hill. It took me a while to figure out steering (circles don’t actually have much directional control) but it didn’t matter that we were going haywire down the hill, Yasmin was screaming with laughter at the top of her lungs, as was I, and it was too much fun to care about technical details (and the broken phone in my pocket). A few hours out in the weather was a good break from the extended period indoors we’ve had of late and helped blow out the cobwebs. But it didn’t take long before the winter chill set in and we were home early for dinner and a big sleep that night.

GW’s State of the Union Address
He’s out there again. In public. Making speeches and marking out his grand plan for the next four years. Too bad if (some of) the people don’t like it, he’s still the boss. Taking up valuable TV airtime on Thursday night, GW laid out his grand plan for ‘this great nation’. More of the same it seems, just an expanded version (53 minutes) of his inauguration speech about bringing freedom to the world (coming, ready or not) and an attempt to address some serious domestic issues. His latest plan is to privatise social security. I can’t even begin to address how bizarre that concept is. I’m sorry, but there’s just something truly unreal about privatising a social program intended for the common good. The fundamental concept of the common good (i.e. for the good of all) is completely undermined by the idea of private ownership of parts of the common good. It seems he wants to allow people to take their money out of social security and invest it in the stock market. Now there’s a safe place for your retirement nest egg! I can’t wait to see how this pans out, but I hope no-one else in government anywhere ever begins to think this is a good idea. The only redeeming feature of the legacy of privatisation that Reagan and Thatcher left is the faint hope that bad governments may eventually privatise themselves out of business altogether.

Superbowl
Well at last we’ve seen what all the fuss is about. Every night on the news the sportscaster made some reference to Superbowl week which led us to expect great things. Even to assume it would be broadcast on all channels. But no, it is, quite simply, a football game. Admittedly the end of the season final, with all the same hoopla as an AFL grand final in Melbourne, but with bigger celebrities doing the pre-game and half-time entertainment, and more expensive advertising during the game.
In spite of having no clue about American football we watched parts of the game, saw the entertainment and didn’t pretend to understand the commentators. In between we channel-surfed to curb the boredom. After all the build-up, just another sports event. And no Janet Jackson flash this year. But some enormous numbers of Americans were either hosting, attending or falling down drunk at a Superbowl party somewhere that night. BTW the New England Patriots won 24-21 over the Philadelphia Eagles. Apparently we’re supposed to root for the Patriots in this part of the country, so I guess we won.

Rellies return
Mother-in-law is back from Egypt on her way home to California. She’s resting up before returning to the trenches, poor thing. It seems a bit of home decorating when on in Cairo. She has a brother in the home improvement business and so put him and a gang of relatives to work renovating the apartment. Think Changing Rooms Egyptian style. The whole place completely redone in seven days. Worthy of a TV reality show, I’d say. Pity she didn’t have a video camera with her. I’d love to have seen how it went.

Brother-in-law and wife enjoyed seeing and meeting all the relatives, and travelled all over diving, holidaying and generally having a good time in the warm weather. Ah, the fortunate few. They’ll be back to reality in a few days and their happy holiday will be but a memory and a very large pile of photographs.

Took M-i-l out to the local Lebanese grocery – 45 minutes drive away – today. It seems Ahmed has been pressing his mum for some old-fashioned home cooking, so we’re in for a treat for the next couple of nights. My treat is not having to cook. But I forgot how much of a nervous Nellie/back seat driver she is. White knuckles all the way. But I’m going soooooo slow (doing 10 mph above the speed limit) all the traffic is passing me, even a police car tailgated me till I moved over out of its way. It doesn’t take much to give her a fright and if I weren’t such a nice person (he, he, he) I could really have some fun with her. We’re sitting in the right hand lane with the indicator on at a t-intersection of a one-way street. And suddenly she sees the sign, looks at the dash to see the indicator light, grabs my hand and asks if this is a one-way street. I say yes and pretend I’m about to turn into the oncoming traffic….

Ah, ya gotta have a laugh. And with that I’m off to do the school pick-up and find out just what it is the kids have to do to prepare for this great big Valentine’s Day party next week. Yes – that’s the next big event. I swear, there’s something on every other week. I’ll be coming home for a rest I think!

The snow has melted
Unless that Groundhog was right this may be the end of the really decent snow. There is more cold weather on the way and a few snows predicted, but it was at least 10 degrees on Tuesday and has been ‘warm’ for a few days (anything above zero is warm apparently), so maybe that’s it? There's no snow left on the ground and the sun is shining. We're at least two whole degrees above freezing today and looking forward to a warm weekend, so I'm hopeful. But chatting to some locals at ballet class yesterday, they advised me that it has been known to blizzard in March or later. I guess we'll just have to wait and see and hope we've got enough winter clothes. I tried to buy some more stuff for Yasmin and all the stores are full of spring/summer items, never mind the actual weather, we apparently need to heed the fashion seasons, not the nature seasons. Lord, luv a duck.