I'm sure you have those days, too...

[wayfaringwordhack]

... where you think, "Oh, I should really post," but then something else comes up.  Before you know it, it has been weeks--or months, maybe years :P--before you sit down and make the time.

So here I am making the time, but I have no one thing I want to make an entire post about.  Therefore, have some hodgepodge:

--ETA: I forgot to start with the "fun" news of Ti'Loup losing his first tooth.  It has been loose for weeks, and he kept wanting me to try to yank it out. :P.  Thankfully today it just came out on its own.  He is just three months shy of 7.  In the not so great news, he hasn't been feeling well for the past three days, and tonight his torso erupted in a rash. It doesn't look like chicken pox, but I guess we shouldn't rule that out yet.

--I started an online drawing course at the end of January.  I am really liking it, but I wonder if I am not missing the point of the class, which is overall, to be able to see shapes and values and therefore simplify complex subjects into paintable compositions.  Simplifying is not my forte. I am making lovely sketches, though.

Here is one from this week's homework:

--When we moved to Lebanon last year, we bought some potted fruit trees (2 lemons and a kumquat), which we kept out on our balcony.  We were just about to harvest our kumquats and our first lemons (after a year of watching the flowers become fruits and slooooooooowly ripen), but someone came into our garden and stole them.  Well, they stole the two that were fruiting and left the one that looks like it is barely hanging on to life.  To say we are disgusted is putting it lightly.  Having had our car stolen in Egypt, we are no strangers to the feeling of being violated.  Doesn't make it any easier to deal with.

--I am getting a bit, not antsy exactly, but ready for the summer trip back to France.  I think the above anecdote has a bit to do with that. I just want to be in a place where I don't feel like I am being targeted. However!  I am also starting to worry about leaving our place empty for so long, fearing we are going to go back and find it has been ransacked. :-/

--Inflation in Lebanon is crazy,* and people are getting (understandably) angrier about still not being able to access their money in the banks.  There is supposedly a plan afoot amongst the high-placed bank people to move ALL money held in the banks into the bank presidents' personal accounts so that the international investigative team that might try to step in and put affairs in order won't be able to touch the funds. How is that for rumors and nefarious schemes?

____________
* The lira was around 27,000=1USD when we moved here at the beginning of last year.  It took about a year for it to get up to 40,000LL=1USD; but in the last 6 weeks it has gone up to 80,000LL=1USD. :(

Comments

[asakiyume]

You really are creating beautiful sketches! That one is lovely--I could walk right into it. In fact, I'd call it finished drawing rather than sketch!

Sooo sorry about the fruit trees. That's really rough :(

I'm reminded of what happened to my former ESL student. She had just moved to an apartment in a different town here, and her bicycle was stolen. She initially said, "Maybe someone has borrowed it and they'll return it." But of course they didn't :( Really too bad.

The protesters in Beirut made the news here. People do need access to their money!

[tolcath]

Hope Ti'Loup feels good soon!

So annoyed about your fruit. :(

[rimturse]

I'm so sorry to hear about the theft. When you said your trees had been stolen I imagined them digging up trees, but that doesn't take away the anger over the theft and the discomfort of having your safe space violated.

I love, love, love the sketches you're doing for the class, they have this old, dreamy feel to them.