Bonfires have been replaced by hookahs

It's almost Halloween, which means it's bonfire and smores season in the States. I LOVE Halloween and I'm sad to be missing out on the hayrides, trick-or-treaters and fun parties that I enjoy so much.

It struck me as funny today when I walked out of school to almost 100 degree weather and commented to a coworker how nice it was outside. ...On October 5th. Almost 100 degrees.

The same thought popped into my head as I ran some laundry out to the dryer a few minutes ago. Here's the current temperature:

I guess it's like fall in Miami...only with dust. And a LOT less skin.

Here's what I'm missing back at home today:

Warm days and cool nights, how I miss thee!

I'll be singing a different tune when it's December and I'm still wearing shorts under my abaya and North America's getting pelted by snow. I will say that I do love a Saudi winter. In the meantime, I'm a touch homesick for burnt marshmallow and beautiful foliage.

Vicariously yours,

We're having a cold snap

My current location:

My summer location:

At this point, I'd be thrilled with the occasional scattered thunderstorm. Bring on Costa Rica!!

Vicariously yours,

Featured Photo: "I don't think the Pledge can handle this."

Yes. This is a photo of my husband vacuuming the remote control. No. We have not developed a sudden case of extreme OCD. What we have acquired, apparently, is a front door that doesn't stay latched. It has recently taken to opening at random times, and today it came open sometime during the day while we were at work.

This wouldn't have normally been all that big a deal, but today was extraordinarily windy, so the door basically welcomed in our own little sandstorm. Everything was covered in a thick layer of sand--not dust, sand! At one point the Mister said, "I need the vacuum. I don't think the Pledge can handle this. This isn't dust, it's piles of SAND."

le sigh.

Vicariously yours,

Not complaining, just comparing.

My current location:

My former location:

Vicariously yours,

It's like I'm in a weather bubble

I'm from Tennessee, and our Springs tend to be a little violent. I remember huddling in school hallways throughout my childhood because of tornado watches, and it was usually during March, April, or May. Anyone watching the US news lately has seen images of the destruction in Alabama ( a state just an hour and a half away from my hometown) and I've heard about a few close calls in Tennessee as well. In May, Nashville will mark the one year anniversary of The Flood of 2010. I'm used to stocking up on non-perishable food items and candles at this time of year.

And then I moved to Saudi Arabia. Apparently the spring in Saudi is fairly calm.

And by calm I mean HOT AS HADES!! It's not even 9 am right now and it's currently 86 degrees and climbing. The projected high for today is 97. IT'S GONNA BE ALMOST 100 DEGREES OUTSIDE AND IT'S NOT EVEN JUNE YET!

Most of you are going to be saying, "Lady, you're the one that decided to move to Saudi Arabia. You knew it is a desert. Stop complaining."

To that I say I'm not complaining. Just observing. ...and yelling.

From what I understand, it only gets hotter and dryer from now on. The Mister and I arrived at the end of last summer, and I couldn't bare be outside for longer than a few minutes before I was sweating through my black abaya. Anyone who knows me know that I'd much rather be hot than cold but h'oh boy, I'm not sure if it's ready to be THIS hot THIS soon.

It's just so odd to me to not have to watch the skies for funnel clouds of have to review weather evacuation plans with my students like I've done for my entire life. My biggest weather concern right now is getting a hijab tan line around my face if I wait outside for the Mister too long after school. I empathize with my fellow Southerners cleaning up after the recent storms, and at the same time I feel like I'm trapped in some sort of bio-dome where the weather is controlled by some sort of Truman Show producer trying to punish me for escaping utopia.

Vicariously yours,

Two Awesome Things Happened today:

1. It rained today. Like really rained.

2. This headline

Vicariously yours,

You're killin' me, Shmalls!

California has mudslides. Oklahoma has tornadoes. New England has the Nor'easter.

Saudi Arabia has sandstorms.

They're not limited to Saudi Arabia, obviously. Just google "sandstorm" and you'll see all kinds of images and amazing YouTube videos from all around the Middle East (and Australia, apparently). But this is my first time regularly experiencing sandstorms, so they're shiny and new and exciting for me. Well, not really shiny. Quite the opposite, actually...

ANYWAY.

We had our first sandstorm a few weeks ago, but unfortunately I had meetings after work so I couldn't capture pictures of it at its worst. According to the locals and Aramcons, the one a few weeks ago was particularly intense for this early in the season.

I'm not gonna lie, I was slightly disappointed. It was bizarre how quickly the storm descended upon us. You can literally smell it coming. First you notice that the air smells dusty all of a sudden, and then you look out the window to see the dust cloud on the horizon. I was expecting something more dramatic, but so far the storms has just looked like fog.

Another shmall kicked up this morning (that's what the Aramcons call the dust storms. I'm still not sure why). Like last time, I smelled it before I saw it. We left for work and everything was clear and normal. A little overcast, perhaps but not dusty. By the time we had reached work 15 minutes later, the dust had come to town!

It's hard to put it into perspective for you because you don't know what it looks like around here on a normal day. So here's a video from September/October that I took around the same time of day as the pictures below.

Here are pictures of this same view, but taken this afternoon during the dust storm:

This is the light post that gets zoomed in on after about 3 seconds into the video.

There's the bridge to Bahrain.

I'm not sure what this is, even on clear days, but it's sticking out of the water maybe 100 yards off the coast.

There's normally blue water visible just past those trees.

According to everyone at work, this is only the beginning, and these sand storms are amateur compared to what we'll have seen by the end of the season. I'm sure I'll get sick of them eventually, but right now they're an odd new spectacle to marvel at through my camera lens.

Vicariously yours,

Strange how it rains now...

I work at an Islamic school. That means we have gender separation. Obviously I work on the girls side. Some days my job description resembles that of a slumber party chaperone more than that of a teacher. Girls are the same here as they are at home, especially when you gather them in large numbers. I regularly hear peals of glee or gratuitous screams filtering in to my classroom from the halls.

But yesterday, just after the last bell had rung and the screams had started, the cries took on another tone and weren't subsiding as quickly as they usually do.

The teachers from the English cluster came out into the hallway to figure out what all the fuss was about. One of my 10th grade students came running by NASCAR style and stopped right in front of me long enough to say, "IT'S RAINING!!"

Yes. All the screaming, yelling, and jumping up and down was all because it had started to "rain" outside. At home we would have used the term "sprinkle," but I didn't have the heart to burst my student's bubble.

The excitement was contagious. I ran and grabbed my camera and headed outside. Ironically, these girls were having the most Biblical reaction to anything I've ever seen in my life. They were singing, they were dancing, and there were even some of them praying! It was so interesting to watch!

I'm told that yesterday was the first time it had rained since last winter. That's at least 7 months since these girls had seen rain in their country. There are so many things we take for granted in the West, and precipitation is definitely one of them.

The rain had stopped after about 10 minutes, but of course I made sure to snap a few pictures before it all passed. It's hard to capture rain in motion, but you can see the proof on the sidewalk around my feet!

See?! See those dots on the sidewalk?

This is my Canadian colleague. She thought the whole situation was just as funny as I did.

Vicariously yours,

CLOUDS!!

I thought it was so funny this morning when we emerged from our respective gates to find that there was a tower of clouds in the sky behind our house! At home, this would never be cause for alarm or excitement of any sort, but this morning all of the residents of my house were standing in the street, faces upturned, just looking at the ONE massive cloud and the sun rays bursting from behind it.

I was so excited I took a picture of it. I took a picture of a cloud. And it's not even a particularly spectacular cloud.

It was literally the first cloud I'd seen since the Mister and I left Amsterdam on September 13.

As we loaded up the car for our daily commute to work, I laughed at myself. I imagined our neighbors coming out to their cars for work and seeing a line of Americans standing in the street, in awe of a cloud and thinking how weird we must be. "Honey, look at the silly white people!"

I didn't think there would be any more fuss about it until I got to school and the first thing a student said to me in the hall was, "Teacher did you see the cloud today?!" My colleagues were all abuzz about it when I got to my classroom: "I know! It's the first cloud since last winter! And it's so big and pretty! Amber! Did you see the cloud this morning!?"

We all were like little kids at the circus! Over A CLOUD! ONE! CLOUD!

The thought struck me as so funny I've been chuckling about it all day. I just thought I would share it with those of you at home in the land of daily clouds.

Vicariously yours,

the weather and other interesting things

Ladies, Gentlemen, Clint...

I've been thinking a lot about how everyday life is going to be in Saudi. I keep coming back to the weather. In Nashville, it's a balmy 59 at night in early September. In Saudi, we're looking at 84 at like 3 AM. We're almost in hoodie weather in middle Tennessee. I suddenly don't think I've packed enough shorts.

But then again, if I remember correctly, winter on the Arabian peninsula was fantastic. It got sweaterish cool and that was about where it stopped. I always think of Sewanee in February when I think of the worst of winter weather. I remember thinking, "good grief, if it would have just stayed October temperature it would be perfect." Fortunately for me...that's about what I have to look forward to. The average low in the dead of winter is about 65. I'm pretty excited about that. I'm not gonna lie...great weather is something that I have come to really love about fall in Tennessee. The absolute worst time of the year here has to be February. During my freshman year of college, I had a series of 3 weeks where there was NO SUN. Clouds literally the entire time. Nothing brings on the seasonal affect disorder like no sun and cold, rainy weather.

However, Saudi will be different because there will be sun. Now, there will be some oddities that are very specific to the area we're in. Like sandstorms. Not like Plant Earth sandstorms...but just the ones that turn the sky orange. Like this...

Pictured: Khaled

I'm totally ready to have that be the weirdest weather thing that I have to deal with. I'm certainly not the type to be excited about digging my car out of 3 feet of snow. Like this...

Pictured: Raina's Saturn

Weather is something that I haven't really thought a whole lot about outside of, "wow, Saudi, huh? gonna be hot there, right?" Yeah...it's gonna be hot. Also, the sky is blue...who'd of thunk. As we count down the days (there are 4 of them) until we get to the big sandy, I get more and more thoughtful about the regular stuff that we're going to deal with. Weather's just what I'm thinking about now.

Vicariously yours,